Soldiering On
by Handful of Silence
Summary: There are glimpses of a world long lost, echoes of a former life, but Amy doesn't understand why she's crying. Post Episode 10. Implied Amy/Rory


_Author Note: This fic sprung about from a comment Van Gogh made in the 'Vincent & The Doctor' episode recently. I really liked this episode and would love to write more on the troubled and turmoiled character of Vincent (as he was in real life, congrats to Richard Curtis for interpreting the man so well), yet for the moment, I just wanted a little fic that will hopefully lead up to the Pandorica opening- not long now people :-)_

_Anyway, hope you like. I don't think it's one of the best fics I've ever penned, yet please feel free to tell me what you think. _

_Pairings: Implied Amy/Rory_

**Vincent: "I hear the song of your sadness. You lost someone I think"  
****Amy: "I'm not sad"  
****Vincent: "Then why are you crying?"  
****  
****Vincent: "It's alright, I understand"  
****Amy: "…I'm not sure I do" **

_Vincent & The Doctor, Series 5, Episode 10_

**Soldiering on**

She doesn't know what is wrong when she first notices it, but it's about that moment that Amy Pond realises that there is something not right with the world. Something not right with the reality she's living in day after day. There shouldn't be anything wrong with her life , because it's never felt wrong before, and she should know because she's been living it for enough years. Nothing has changed, nothing is different, but the lie is there, nestling in the cracks of the universe. The lie is everywhere; in her memories, in her senses, and there is a constant buzzing in the back of her thoughts that something is missing. Something precious has been stolen. The Doctor doesn't notice it, doesn't notice the wrongness and if he does, doesn't comment, and yet Amy is sure it is there, whatever 'it' is. Something she can't quite describe, can't quite put her finger on, like a gap in the noise of her world, with her trying to find the sounds she's lost. It's a question she can't recall the answer to, an elusive piece of paper on which the revelation is written, spinning out her grasp on the eddies of the wind. Her fingers close desperately, but catch only air beneath her fingertips.

It's lots of little things that let her know that something is out of sync. More times than one, she's thought she saw someone reflected on the console of the Tardis, a green eyed smile glinting on the mirror like the ghosts of rainbows on raindrops, yet when she whirls around to try and catch another glimpse, there is no one, except a red haired girl staring back. Vincent had noticed, Vincent had said what she herself was trying to understand, without her even truly knowing she was even looking for an answer. Her song of sadness as he called it on a dusty road in Auvers-sur-Oise, is a wailing heartbroken lament to something lost, yet she doesn't hear it. But her body knows the words, her mind hums the tune when she lies down to sleep, and there is left only her and the darkness to sing along. It is a song that seems familiar now, when it wasn't before, like an overplayed track on the radio, a background sound to her usual life.

Sometimes for no reason at all, she stops like she's been frozen, ice in her limbs and ice in her heart, suddenly wanting to burst into tears. And she can't explain it. Nothing has happened, she's not stressed or hormonal or even sad, yet it's there. A screaming loss is present in her mind, crying through her blood as though the end of all things has come, like the meaning she once had escaped her. She suddenly can't remember why she stayed in Leadworth after the Doctor left a second time, can't understand why the park bench overlooking the small lake is special or why her ring finger feels so _empty._ Her gut twists in jolting pain, and her heart hurts so badly, as though the sum misery of the universe has lodged itself in her brain, unwelcome yet present. Sunflowers in her mind, hinging on the peripheries of thoughts of life and death. She wants to cry and beg and allow the tears to come, and then the feeling is gone, as quickly as it came. She doesn't mention it to the Doctor- she can't even explain it to herself, and she gets the sense that even if she did ask, he wouldn't tell her. The answers are taboo, unspeakable, as if to mention it would set about a sequence of events like domino's falling. She only shrugs the moment off, tries to ignore it, but the thoughts stick around in her mind long after the burning sadness has vacated.

But it's not just the glimpses of ghosts in the mirrors that makes the biggest impact, isn't just the feeling that she's missing something so obvious, knowledge that should transcend even the barriers the universe can hold up. It's not the whistling she sometimes thinks she hears, familiar and comfortable, yet prickling her arms into goose bumps like someone's walking across her grave, déjà vu whispering around corners for her to find the answers, the not-normalness in the crooks and crags of her own delusional mind.

She recalls that The Matrix used to be the favourite film of someone she knew, but she can't quite remember now. It seems important for some reason but yet again she can't see the bigger picture. What she does remember is that in the Matrix, déjà vu happens when someone changes something that's not meant to be changed. And Amy thinks someone's been messing round with this universe, moving things that should have stayed the same. Changing things she didn't want changed.

Yet it's not even the name on the tip of her tongue after she shouts for the Doctor to come running, or the sense of wrongness she gets when he eyes look down at her ring finger and wonder why it's bare, even though it's always been that way.

What scares her are the dreams, that come creeping in like a cold breeze, nightmares that are vague in form and structure. They don't even make sense, shapeless forms melting across her vision that fill her with such emotion, such feeling, that she wakes up crying when she doesn't know why. Odd phrases fill the dreams, the voice of a man that she can't quite place, with a face that seems so important, but that she forgets as soon as she opens her eyes to the real world. Sometimes the dreams are nice, sensations of loving and being loved, the weight of a hand in her own, the touch of a kiss against her cheek. An awkward admission of love, an enveloping hug that makes her feel so whole. Yet sometimes the dreams are dark twisted things, invisible monsters that pulse gunfire, a wheezing pain in her ears like someone's speaking their goodbyes – _You're so beautiful/ I'm sorry - _, a pleading and crying in a voice that sounds like her own. And then in these dreams, the crack in her bedroom wall appears like the glowing mouth of Hell and takes away her soul.

She's woken up screaming from these dreams, a call that isn't for the Doctor in the back of her throat, and she's crying and shaking and wondering why it hurts so much. And then the Doctor is there, wrapping his arms around her, telling her everything is fine, that everything'll be ok, even though she can't bring herself to believe him.

"Make it stop," she cries into his tweed jacket, her fingers clutching at his sleeves like he's going to disappear any moment , his arms rocking her as the unexplained tears roll freely down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry Amy, I can't" she hears him whisper back, and she wonders whether this is why he's been so nice recently, why he's taken her to all these wonderful cultural places that he never usually bothers with, why he's more patient then usual even though he denies it when she brings it up. This is the only time they speak of these things, the smallest acknowledgement that something is wrong with the world, for when morning comes neither of them mention it. When morning comes, the cobwebs are dusted away, the running starts up again, and all is steady in the reality again. Amy tries to forget the ghosts in the corner of her eye, and the emptiness she can't explain. She just tries to lose herself in the wonders of the universe. And sometimes she manages it.

While all the time, the song of sadness sings softly in her head.


End file.
